Fuji Reala 500D

[David Tarango]

Hi all,

 

I am a student here at UCSB, in Santa Barbara. I am shooting a short film on 16mm for a student film festival we have here every year. I went to home depot and bought some flourescent lamp fixtures, they hold T8 bulbs, 4 ft, 40 watts, electronic ballasts. I bought daylight color balanced flourescent bulbs to put in them about 5200K I believe. The scene I am shooting is in my apt living room, we are on 2nd floor, one wall is basically a glass window, good indirect light. It should be cloudy tomorrow, so diffused light, it has been raining today, but not in forecast for tomorrow. I have Fuji Reala 500 D. Oh, I only have 3 of these homemade kino's. They are 2 bank.

 

Ok, down to the question, Do you think it will work? Im not going to use any Tungsten lighting, just daylight from utside and my little lights, with 500 speed daylight film. BTW, I have never shot with this film stock.

 

Thanks in advance, I have many more questions!

 

~ David

[Michael Nash]

You might still see a little bit of a green spike from the "daylight" balanced tubes. You could experiment with some 1/8 minus-green gel to get them to the right color. They might also be a little warmer in color than the ambient daylight on a cloudy day. Reala is supposed to be good at dealing with these color issues, but I've never put it to the test.

 

It doesn't sound like you'll get much output from only 3 units though. It all depends on your shots and how you want to light it. If the ambient daylight is working for you, you can use the flo's as fill when needed. Consider putting them through a frame of light diffusion (not clipped to the unit) to soften them for more natural-looking fill. Even 4' long shoplights can give a "hard" shadow along one axis.

[David Tarango]

Cool, thanks for the advice Michael!

 

I was reading the brochure, and it says: " Outstanding performance in mixed lighting, REALA 500D performs exceptionally under mixed lighting. When Shooting interiors by window under flourescent lighting or using mercury vapor lights, the resulting images are virtually free of any greenish cast. This versatility minimizes the need for special filters and extra shooting preparations."

 

This is one of the reasons I decided to use this film stock, since it would work well with my homemade ghetto-flo's. I guess I will have to put Fuji to the test.

 

As far as the output from the lights, they do not put whole lot out, but when placed close to the subject being filmed, they will add about 1 stop of light. I do have a silk diffusion fabric which I can use to soften the flourescent a little, I will have to check the light loss on that, it is home made as well, from a fabric store.

 

I am excited and think this will work, most of the shots are closeup to medium shots of two college students sitting on a couch, playing video games.

 

Thank for the tips, I will be sure to use them!

[David Mullen ASC]

Warning: Reala 500D is a rather soft & grainy stock in 16mm. If you could somehow work with Eterna 250D instead, I think you'll be a lot happier with the results.

[Jan Weis]

Warning: Reala 500D is a rather soft & grainy stock in 16mm. If you could somehow work with Eterna 250D instead, I think you'll be a lot happier with the results.

 

I recieved a couple of rolls of Reala 500d stock. As you mention its pretty soft and grainy, so what can I do to make the most of it?

 

/Jan

[David Mullen ASC]

Rate it at 320 ASA for starters and keep the lighting sharp and contrasty, not soft and low-con.

[Jan Weis]

Rate it at 320 ASA for starters and keep the lighting sharp and contrasty, not soft and low-con.

 

thanks David, Ill try to film in direct sunlight with a couple of ND filters and overexpose it.

 

/Jan

[David Tarango]

The only reason I am using the Reala 500, is because I don't have a lot of lights to work with, I only have daylight coming through the windows.

Edited April 22, 2007 by David Tarango

[David Mullen ASC]

Have you taken your meter to the location to see what sort of natural light levels you will be working in?

[ryan_bennett]

I would listen to David's advice on rating 320 but we used 500D for a short and it looked fine, there was some softeness but it came from the lens as it was consistently soft focus on what we shot on 200T. I'm also more curious in how you made the lights though, can you shed some more information?

[Robert Houllahan]

I would listen to David's advice on rating 320 but we used 500D for a short and it looked fine, there was some softeness but it came from the lens as it was consistently soft focus on what we shot on 200T. I'm also more curious in how you made the lights though, can you shed some more information?

 

 

We did a process and dailies job last year on an indie feature that they shot entirely with the 500D in Super16, I thought that was a strange choice, especially all the interiors, but i thought it mostly looked good allot like 7277.

 

-rob-

[Galen Carter-Jeffrey]

Hey man, I shot something using the exact same stock and method you did. The only difference was that there wasnt much mixed lighting. Here is what I got

 

 

 

Edited April 23, 2007 by Galen Carter-Jeffrey

[ryan_bennett]

We did a process and dailies job last year on an indie feature that they shot entirely with the 500D in Super16, I thought that was a strange choice, especially all the interiors, but i thought it mostly looked good allot like 7277.

 

-rob-

 

Ya that is a strange choice... I used 500D with interiors just because there were so many windows and fluorescents in the location i felt it would be easier to CTB the lights and get some Kino's then to buy CTO gels for the windows. I gotta get some stills from the two movies I've been working on up here.